


and that's an issue, but I'm okay

by orphan_account



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Bay Movies), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Cute, Early Days, F/M, Making Out, Ninja, Secret Relationship, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He’s smiling at his phone again; he shouldn’t be.





	and that's an issue, but I'm okay

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Apritello week. Songfic for Closer by Halsey + The Chainsmokers.

He’s smiling at his phone again; he shouldn’t be.

_‘i’m outside’_ It tells him, the tiny pixels making it real. Savable, and permanent proof that April O’Neil, famously hot reporter and personal family friend _like -_ likes him. Mikey re-arranges, leaning heavily on the arm of the couch, one foot swinging.

_‘see you in 5? <3'_  blinks into existence.

“Hey, Leo!” He calls, fingers flying across the screen, dinner congealing in a box beside him. “I’m going out!”

“You tell Master Splinter that?” Leo says, dryly amused, and much closer than Mikey thought he was. A reminder that permanent proof is the most dangerous kind when you have nosy brothers. He tucks the phone close to his chest, throws on an easy smile.

“It’s just April.” Mikey says, and Leo’s grin softens. Their _hogosha_. Mikey’s smile notches up, the corners of his mouth twitching. He was so glad he’d called dibs. “She has some more stuff on the Foot, for Don and you to look over.”  
  
“Yeah, so why’d she call you?” Raph asks.

“Uh, maybe she likes me?” Mikey says, and it’s no effort to grin too hard, to pull his eyes wide and guileless. To invite the laughter his words bring.

No effort to slip out of the house after that. Five minutes. Hah. He’ll make it there in three.

_

“Hey!”

His shout is muffled through the glass of her window, but April startles badly before she realizes it’s just Mikey. The last few months of her life have hardly been uneventful, and as she rolls down her window she hopes her smile says as much.

“Hey, beautiful, did I scare ya?” Mikey asks first thing when he climbs into her car. He’d gone over the roof, instead of walking around. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Too much coffee.” She reassures him, hating the insecurity in his eyes. Cosmo told her guys hated needy girls and ten reasons why, but Mikey had a need for love deeper than she sometimes knew what to do with. “I wanted to see you all day.”

“I wanted to see you too.” Michelangelo says, too excited to be shy and too new to this thing between them to keep his secrets close to his shell. She loves it, no secret there. His hand covers her shoulder, and kissing him is easier than anyone she’s ever been with. They’ve done it often enough to be sweetly familiar with each other, and that - that’s new for her too.

  
After her father had died, she’d felt so distant from her friends, the family who could barely be bothered to stay in touch. O’Neil, the loudest voice in every journalism class she took, but only if the topic was assigned. She wasn’t lonely - just driven.

Too driven to keep a roommate, or make any real friends at work. And then she’d met them, _found_ them really, fate -

Mikey is already crowding her against her side of the BMW, hands reaching across the divide of their seats to pull her closer, and god, this is exactly what she wants after a long day of listening to Vern talk over the van’s radio.

Ugh.

His face nuzzles into hers, warm and broad, his mouth nipping at her lower lip over and over again, teasing, until it stings and she presses forward, desperate to get him back. She loves how fun it is to kiss Mikey. April shifts in her seat, thighs rubbing together as she squirms, and she can tell from how he softens the kiss, makes it light and sweet and perfect that he’s as happy as she is. She had come here directly after work, a new jump drive of intel for Don, and Michelangelo’s blue, blue eyes on her mind.

“Wait-How long do you have?” She asks, pulling back and _ugh_ , she sounds... breathless. April flushes, ducking her head a bit to hide her eyes.

“Uh- a while? Maybe?” He sounds as shook as she does, and when April meets his eyes, he’s smiling at her, albeit quizzically. “You ready to make the trade, O’Neil?”

She laughs, and gestures over his shoulder to the glove box, all the way back on his own side of the car. His hands leave her waist first, and April stays, quiescent against the door where she was left, content to listen to the soft rattle of the cowrie shells he wore. Months, and April still has no idea how he moves so silently with them when he chose.

“I don’t know what the last one had on it, but it sure threw Don for a loop for a couple-a days.”

April searchs his face, unsure of what he’s asking, but Mikey keeps busy with the glove box. A long second drags by.

“Are you asking-”

“- _no_ -”

“I don’t mind-”

Mikey sighs, slipping the piece of tech into his pocket. “It’s not you. Leo’s the one keeping me and Raph out. You don’t need to-”

Unable to do this without touching him, April moves, reaching out for his hand, his face, pulling the troubled sky of his eyes in line with hers. He needed so much sunlight, and the sewer had so little to offer.

“I don’t want to ask you to break Leo’s confidence.” Mikey says, and the easy respect for her in his eyes is a balm after a long day of Vern’s intrusive interest in her, and the numbness of a job she should love. She just thought, dreamed really in all those journalism classes in college, that she’d be covering something serious- not fluff and fitness. “You’re so important-”

“You should know.” April says, sudden and decisive. She means it. “Yeah- this is- it’s too big, they’re being dumb, here, give me my laptop-”

He’s moving ahead of her demand, and the USB plugs in with a soft snick. Their heads crowd together, as she shows him the newest reports she’s managed to piece together. Maybe the only reporting she gets paid to do involves being froth, but in her own time April’s been putting her smiles to better use.

“How long-”

“Months.” She tells him, the worry in her voice matching his own, raising it. Her fingers dart for the keyboard in his lap, and April doesn’t miss the quick breath he sucks in. She pulls up a map of the city. “Look.”

“It’s not just police patrols that have amped up- fifteen new neighborhood watch organizations have been approved. The members listed often have no address, or fakes-”

“It’s an army.” Mikey says. “How-”

  
“Not how.” April says grimly. “We need to know who. Trying to figure that out is what’s kept me so busy. Sorry, Mike-”

“No, you’re amazing.” He’s looking at her, warm and sincere. Thousands of people see her on tv everyday and none of them see her like Michelangelo does. He paints her in the warm tones of his love, and she is better for it. “I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with this alone...well, I guess not, huh?”

“They should have told you.” She says, and his smile flinches. “ _Really_. This is dangerous. This many people on the streets, and us with no idea who’s controlling them- everyone should know. I’m going to tell Leo that myself.”

He looks bewildered, but pleased and this time it’s her to press across the divide of their seats, brushing a kiss to the edge of his wide mouth, another to his jaw. It’s soft and easy, and Mikey’s hands come up to cradle and support her weight, while his mouth takes her rhythm and returns it. It’s quick, and clumsy and April hasn’t wanted to kiss someone for just a little bit longer since she first swapped spit behind her middle school gym. Fast hands pulling at her jacket, slipping into the fall of her hair, needing all of her at once.

“April...”

His breath is a rush against her skin, and she lets him pull her, elbow banging the steering wheel, hair swinging. When they press back together the kiss makes her blood rush, her toes curl.

Her ringtone sounds, and they pull apart, Mikey laughing at her expression, and she sinks small, white teeth into his shoulder, right over his tattoo to shut him up. Then she taps her phone on.

“Hey, Leo.” She says, and Mikey smooths a final kiss across her lips as goodbye, the soft brush of his necklace across her jacket before he flings himself buoyantly from her passenger seat. “Yeah, he’s headed back just now-Oh. I’m good. How are you, Leo?”

Mikey’s gone in a flash, and April puts her Rover in reverse, missing his shell already.

_

Her apartment is dark when she gets back. No roommate this year, not with the hours April keeps, all the big, green secrets in and out of her window. Instead, Donnie covers a third the rent, and runs some of his more sensitive experiments in the second room. A cushy deal, and one that she’d accepted gratefully.

The warm water from her shower beats out the last of her stress, leaving her lax and restless. It’s loud enough around her that April doesn’t hear the thump of green feet on her bedroom carpet, or the creak of the door opening.

Instead, April hears the soft rattle across an eager shell and a smile tugs at her.

“Hey, babe. Room for two?”

**Author's Note:**

> Left for cold, right for [hot](http://honeyedlion.tumblr.com/).


End file.
